Holland: What I couldn’t say in the courtroom

Editor’s note: Dr. Robert Holland is a physician who lives in Irasburg.

On Dec. 5, 2011, I and five other citizens went on property of disputed ownership that has been posted by Green Mountain Power for the construction of the Lowell Wind Project. We were arrested and charged with criminal trespass. The Public Service Board had full knowledge of this property dispute six months earlier, in May 2011, when it issued a certificate of public good for the project.

On Aug. 15, 2012, in Orleans Superior Court, with the state presenting no evidence regarding the rightful ownership of the property, we were convicted of criminal trespass. These convictions should give Vermonters pause.

Three decisions were made by the state without addressing the issue of rightful ownership: blow up four miles of the Lowell Mountains ridgeline, arrest the citizens, and convict the citizens.

Though I took an oath in court to “tell the whole truth,” I could not, because the judge would not allow it. Here is the whole truth.

First – Gov. Shumlin says that industrial scale ridgeline wind projects planned for the length of Vermont are effective responses to climate change. Sadly, he is wrong. A recent publication, “Towards a New National Energy Policy,” demonstrates that only two policy alternatives are capable of successfully addressing climate change: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade policy. Simply adding renewable energy to a toxic situation does not reduce CO2 emissions.

Second – Green Mountain Power and the Public Service Board say that the Lowell Wind Project is cost-effective. They are also wrong. The Lowell Wind Project is the most “cost-ineffective” wind project built since the 1980s, according to the Department of Energy’s database of renewable energy projects.

By way of comparison, recent studies have demonstrated that Vermont has 93 MW of small scale and run-of-the-river hydroelectric projects available at a cost of 6-7 cents/kwh. How does this compare to the Lowell Wind Project at a cost of 10 cents/kwh? Based on GMP’s estimated production from the Lowell Project and using readily available predictions from the Energy Information Administration, the Lowell Wind Project will cost Vermont ratepayers more than $188 million above market price over the next 25 years. The same amount of electricity from small scale hydro would cost $24 million above market over 25 years, a truly cost-effective renewable energy source.

How do these options, ridgeline wind and small-scale hydro, compare in terms of environmental consequence? The Lowell Wind Project permanently damages Vermont’s 12th largest habitat block. Water flows, wildlife habitat, view sheds, river temperature, stormwater runoff will never be the same. Small-scale hydro using run-of-the-river and recommissioning existing dams, in comparison, has minimal environmental consequence.

Vermont’s statutes require that new energy projects be cost-effective, that the cost evaluation include environmental and economic costs and that each Vermont utility be least-cost to the public. There is no public documentation that the Lowell Wind Project complies with these statutory requirements.

I was prohibited from saying any of the above in court.

All Vermonters are part of the energy challenge. As individuals, we are addicted to low cost energy; as citizens, we do not collectively demand effective climate change policy.

My conclusion, and the reason I and five other citizens were compelled to an act of civil disobedience, is that when it comes to renewable energy generation Vermont government is serving the interests of industrial wind developers over its citizens.

In the 1860s the United States promised the Sioux Nation the Black Hills for as long as water ran and grass grew. A decade later with the discovery of gold, its word was broken. In the 1970s Gov. Deane Davis promised Vermonters the Green Mountains forever. That promise is now broken.